Nobody's Listenin'
by agentcarter12
Summary: She can feel the pain, she can feel her heart trying to continue without the element of need- she can feel the thud-thuds -that are slowly fading away just like that small life inside her, the can feel the blood trying to rush to her body, she can feel the adrenaline wanting to travel through her, and hands are pressing her throat and her entire chest feels like it's on fire.


One minute she's kneeling to observe the powdered compound covering the floor, and the next she's being shot at. She makes a run for it, before the blinding pain shoots up her leg at a hundred and fifty miles per minute; even the adrenaline isn't enough to dull the pain. She pushes herself, the will to live emerging, and limps through the stone hallway, shoving herself into the small corridor. Now that she's stopped, her erratic heartbeat seems to echo throughout the entire place like giants footsteps. The pain is white hot, and as soon as she touches her wound, her hand flies back at the burning sensation. She takes of her jacket; her breath uneven now that she knows what she's going to have to do- and she ties it around her would tightly, muffling the gasp of pain. She hopes the bullet hit her bone, and is not currently somewhere in her blood stream. The sound of approaching footsteps leads her to try to be even quieter, and for a few moments she can't breathe- and she wonders if this is what Brody felt like, the inability to take a large gulp of air, the constriction in her chest, the feeling of being alive for a brief second before letting it out.

This is her life, and it's ending one minute at a time.

For a short second, she has a flashback of exactly how she found herself in this godforsaken, unsalvageable situation- oh right, it's Saul's fault, like almost everything is now. Quinn was no big help either- what's the point of being backup when you're going to split up at the first hallway?

Looking up, the small stone hallway seems even smaller.

Her eyes fly open at the briefest sound, the almost inaudible footstep- and as soon as she's going to lift her gun towards the entry, there he is- the object of her frustration, Peter Quinn. She doesn't hear a word he says as he helps her walk out and she doesn't say anything in return as they finally get their way out. When they're finally out, he makes idle conversation. "What did you cover the wound with?" He asks. She rolls her eyes, trying to not show the pain it's taking to move. It's lesser than before, but it's still there.

"My jacket. There goes three months paycheck." He looks at her as if she's grown two heads. She isn't fazed; growing another head would probably be the least surprising thing going on here.

You wake up in an ambulance.

Now some stranger is cleaning her wound while her unofficial partner stares at her from across.

You wake up at home.

The couch she's sitting on holds a lot of memories, but none like this.

You wake up in you chair with your head on your desk at your office.

There she is again, in the old building with the crisp off-white walls- empty and filled with dreary echoes.

You wake up at Keller memorial hospital.

Feels like déjà vu. She wonders if she's been here before. The walls are straight white, as if painted too many times and her vision his hazy, making everything look somewhere on the gray scale. Oh, and there's Quinn, he's got a look on his face she'd call worry on anyone else's. But on Quinn- it just looks misplaced. The guy walking with her wherever she's being taken is saying something while pushing her eyelids apart and shining light and she wants to tell him to shut the hell up.

You wake up in the subway.

That's weird. She can't seem to remember how she got there, but she is. She blinks, and there's Quinn standing in front of her with the misplaced look. The talkative guy she seems to know but can't quite place keeps talking and talking and talking. She takes a deep breath, pulls out the gun shoved in the holder at the back and she shoots the guy straight in the head. She turns to look back in front of her, and the spot previously occupied by Quinn stands empty. The man's brain and blood cover the subway floor. She looks at the lifeless carcass on the floor, and then looks back at the gun.

Tick tock, Tick Tock- tick tock goes the clock. You can't stop it.

No one can.

She puts the gun in her mouth.

Suddenly everyone cares.

Saul and Quinn and her sister, father, Brody, Virgil, Max- everyone she knows.

No, they tell her. Don't do this. Please. Don't do it.

For a moment it's fine. Everything's okay. Everything is perfect, for one single moment.

Because a moment is the only thing perfect can be, isn't it?

You wake up in bed with your too warm woolen blanket covering you too well. You look to the floor, and it's covered with the remains of blood and brain. Scarlett marring the clean white tiles. It feels uncanny- too familiar perhaps?

You wake up with a heaviness in your left leg and your unofficial partner sitting close and staring at you.

You wake up at the small bench you accidently feel asleep on during recess during second grade.

You wake up next to the man you love, and then he's gone.

You wake up nowhere.

Nowhere, however, is better than where she is now. The morphine is making her drowsy, and she can't be drowsy- because when she'll wake up she'll flip shit, but no one's listening to her. No one cares.

Only a moment allowed for perfection.

You wake up nowhere, again.

It's all fuzzy, like the windows of her dad's car when she was young. Oh shit, she's having her urges again. But no, she can't act on anything while he's sitting her looking at her. Not that he hasn't seen her in far worse situations, but this seems personal. This seems not forced- like actual worry. Like she thought before, it's a very misplaced emotion to be attributed to Quinn of all people, who is staring into her like a corpse. She's staring back. It's like their eyes are having a secret conversation neither of them can understand.

You wake up in a small room that seems smaller.

You wake up with stone walls trying to eat you up.

You wake up to nothing but crisp white halls indicating hospice care.

If her mind wasn't fucked up in so many places, she'd probably feel warmed by the fact that he's stayed here, she's also feeling really angry- honest, good old fashioned anger at her mentor, her role model- who's become this stranger she can't even recognize anymore.

You wake up with your eyes all red and books all over our coffee table and your leg in a cast, with your friend- no scratch that- acquaintance standing in front of your door.

She wonders for a brief second at what exactly is wrong with her for not even being bothered by the fact that he's just barged into her house without even informing her. She's not even the least bit surprised, and for a moment she debates about what normal is and how not even a sliver of it relates to her. He stares at her. She stares back, until she gives in to the red eyes and the pounding drum in her head going on and on and on, and motions to the sofa opposing her, in between of them is the coffee table all dirty and disorganized. And her sister wonders why Carrie never has guests over.

You wake up with your body yelling pain, blood gushing out of your leg and your heart beating at a hundred and thirty beats per minute.

Her fridge has never been more empty- it looks like the back drop for a cowboy showdown, and she's surprised she's looking in it again for the fifth time tonight. Her leg's feeling numb again and she trudges back over to the abused coffee table and her way-too-warm seat opposing her stoic partner's chair. From the time he's come in he hasn't said a thing except for the small inquiry of whether or not she's okay.

You wake up in bed.

You wake up in the chair in your office with no sight of your wound.

You wake up in bed again, with your leg all wrapped up in a cast.

When she wakes up in the morning, she thinks about skipping work even after the three week holiday she's gotten. She can't sleep and she can't eat. She's not doing well. But then again, who is? It's time, she decides, to stop licking the imaginary wound like most idiots in her generation are doing and go do her job.

She's sitting at a support group of all the fucked up things she's gone to and the thin frail woman there says, "Hello everyone, this is Holly. This is her first time with us." And then she's met with a chorus of high and low pitched gravely voices being welcoming and saying 'Hi Holly, Nice to meet you, Holly.' When they ask her about her problem, she's quick in answering. She has Bipolar disorder, and sometimes goes bat shit crazy off the radar. Nice to meet you, Holly, is the only reply she gets.

You wake up with anger pulsing through every vein and your eyes throbbing in pain.

Holly becomes a part of her life, one she doesn't share with anybody. It's nice, and uncomplicated in a way her life hasn't been for a very long time. It's nice to give up and throw her hands around Jenna and feel human again, if only for a few brief minutes. And then…then she's back to her life as Carrie Mathison, infamous CIA officer who slept with a traitorous ex-marine. But that's okay, it's all okay when she can be Holly for a few tiny little seconds.

You wake up with eighteen messages on your phone and you can't be bothered to check them.

She takes in the smoke from her cigarette and inhales, feeling the smoke going to her lungs, the taste of burnt tobacco on her tongue- it's a familiar feeling- one she's come to appreciate. It's downright exhausting moving on.

You wake up with your mentor going over a case file so fast you can barely understand.

Oh jeez. Saul's going on about some man she can't be bothered about. She nods, accompanied by Quinn who asks for some more details. She flips open the file shoved into her hands, the small block letter next to a blurred picture read 'XAVIER G. WALTERS'. The rest of the text is in small block letters, and there's a calming feeling curling inside her when she looks at the data comprised in small, neat and black characters.

You wake up on a plane that lost cabin pressure with your shirt all wet with crimson liquid.

You wake up in bed with your partner staring at the ceiling.

Her view on the universe is compromised because she's sharing a room with him- rather a bed with him- no matter what anyone says, she is not sleeping on the floor. He's good company, though, she has to admit that. He doesn't talk unless it's essential and the silence slowly starts to settle in on her- the paranoia she's been burying for so long reaching old gnarled fingers on to her, and there it is- her hands are back where the belong- pulling the long golden strands through her fingers. This familiarity, though, is not comfortable. It's been two weeks on this mission and she's going to pass out from the sheer will power she's using to just _sit there. _It's pathetic, honestly. She can see the questions he wants to ask her. They're the things shining in his eyes making both of them look away. _Why did she give her child up again? _Pathetic.

The reason doesn't seem so pathetic anymore when she's standing over two unconscious men with a cracked rib and a broken nose and no sleep for the last four days.

You wake up at an airport with two day old clothes, a lukewarm cup of coffee and unwashed hair.

You wake up in a car driving seventy miles an hour and the wind slapping your face over and over and over again.

You wake up at a small unimportant clinic miles away from Langley.

You wake up in bed, covered in sweat with a faded mental picture of a small ginger haired girl.

You wake up to an ex-agent's hands closing on your throat.

She can feel the pain, she can feel her heart trying to continue without the element of need- she can feel the _thud-thuds _that are slowly fading away just like that small life inside her, the can feel the blood trying to rush to her body, she can feel the adrenaline wanting to travel through her, and hands are pressing her throat and her entire chest feels like it's on fire. Her hands feel clammy, feverish- _useless. _She can't breathe in the air surrounding her, she can't do anything with her hands and she almost surrenders to the darkness that beckons her but for some reason, she doesn't. She takes her _clammy _hand and folds it into a fist and slams it into the center of the man's ribcage- right at his solar plexis and that throws him off. She can _feel_ each thing her body goes through next; she feels the blood rushing to her head, her throat filling with pain but she keeps taking in large gulps of air, she can feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins and the pain ebbs away into darkness. The man's up again, and she kicks him- straight in the chest; her eyes in a mad scramble for the gun she remembers bringing in. He shoves her, and she falls to the ground, the blood from her torn cheek seeping into the crevices of her teeth. But she pushes herself, pushes herself like she's learned how to, and reaches for the innocent gun in the corner. He kicks her, straight at the ribs and the pain blooms through her and it feels _good, _it feels _familiar, _it feels like she's back to when it was all fine, when she was a good CIA agent who got scars from fights and wore each proudly; she feels like Carrie- She feels like herself- and that's enough to spark whatever she has left inside her. She pulls him down, kicking him at the knees and he falls, and she drags herself to the corner, kicking blindly against the aching grip he has on her shin- his nails rip into her, the crescent shapes cutting to leave bloody moon shapes and smudged fingers against her calf- but she doesn't care, because she is close, she is so fucking _close. _The feel of a gun in her hand sends that familiar feeling through her again, and she cocks it, turns around and shoots. The agent bleeds out on the floor from the hole in his head, his hand still on her leg; trying to drag her with him.

She lifts herself up, pulls the agent's _clammy _hand off her leg and manages a sitting position- her legs spread in front of her. Her heart feels like a hummingbird, going on and on and _on. _She leans her head against the wall, wincing at the feel of bruise against cement. But she keeps it there. She sits there with her hummingbird heart and the feeling of pain spreading through her whenever the back of her head touches the wall. Her neck feels heavy, everything feels heavy- the burden on her shoulders, the one on her heart. But it also feels good. It proves to her in some sick way that she is Carrie and she can feel something other than regret.

You wake up in bed with your entire body lit by pain and six different pain killers sitting by your bedside. Yellow pills, blue ones, red and green. One for each spectrum of the rainbow. You go back to sleep.

Memories haunt her dreams each day until she comes to despise them. Her compact is much thinner- covering up dark circles takes up most of it each day.

She goes to Pakistan next; one of her acquaintances in the intelligence is waiting for her and Quinn at the airport. The Pakistani intelligence officer, Fatima, is not like most. She covers her hair in a _makna, _not a wisp visible. She gets straight to the point. She tells them they're going to be saying for twelve hours in the least- they shouldn't leave the room they've been given until they have the witness in their custody, and leaves. Ten hours later- during which a pathetically meager amount of less than ten sentences has been spoken altogether- Fatima returns, and beckons them out. They can't see the man's face- but by his body language, it's quite visible to see the man's been broken by whatever methods at this agency- and he's thrown into the small van. Fatima informs them that she will be accompanying them to the states; making sure he _reaches _the agency. Carrie knows what she means.

You wake up at a Pakistani intelligence officer's funeral.

You wake up in the plane ride home with Fatima and Quinn, and the explosive maker whose name you haven't bothered to inquire.

Fatima stays a total of two days. Fatima leaves the states in a frozen box with someone offering the words 'she helped.' During her stay, she's silent mostly, quietly observing every sliver of movement, barely moving. During the interview Carrie has with the prisoner, she surveys the situation from the back of the room. When the man shoots with the guards gun; she throws Carrie off her chair and the bullet hits Fatima at her heart. Fatima bleeds out while Carrie and three other agents get the man back into his chair.

Carrie attends the funeral in Islamabad. It's short and punctual, and she remembers Fatima once saying, _none of us have time. Everything should be at the time given. Not a minute less and not a minute more. _She remembers her praying in one of the back rooms, with long sleeves. She remembers being told by her,_ Islam is of peace, and whoever is not in favor of peace- is not Muslim._

The funeral feels like one. Unlike Brody's.

You wake up in your old bosses office with new pictures and accessories all over the place.

She meets up with Quinn for a drink- because a few people just died, and over a dozen are in the hospital after that whole scanned bomb thing- and they're lucky to get out of it alive. That's what most people are saying.

"This whole thing is fucked up." He tells her.

She's not sure if he's pointing to life or the job. Maybe both.

Yes, Quinn. She tells him. Yes, it is.

Saul tells her he's moving. She nods and goes along with it. Estes' room feels unethical to work in. She misses her cubicle, misses the familiarity of her board and her web of conspiracies all linked together. She misses Brody. She misses college. She throws the empty carton under the large desk. It all still feels unethical.

You wake up with your face all swollen and on crutches. You're back at the hospital.

Somehow she feels as if she's been spending too much time there lately.

You wake up in a pile of cement, plaster and dust. The world seems changed. The sky is a torrent of misery and agony. Low pitched screams linger in the air. Things seem broken. You seem broken, and not in the brain food philosophy way- oh no. In the literal sense. Her bones feel like crumbling, her vision is hazy and she can see stars in the sun framed sky. Fatima's God seems unmoved. The world _has_ changed.

The first person she sees out from the weight is Quinn, who motions to other people to get her out. The first piece of boulder is lifted from her, and she passes out.

You wake up in a bed with your unofficial partner staring at you. You're kind of glad he's here. He tells you there was a blast at the place where your assignment was.

The door to the hospital room creaks open, and Saul enters. She's shocked, and Quinn, sensing the tension mounting, excuses himself. _I thought you left, _she tells him- there's a bit of accusation in the tone, and the same amount of jeering; she's hoping he'll take the bait and rise to the challenge.

He doesn't.

He smiles in that way that makes her feel like he understands and she remembers the smile very well over the entire course of her career. She takes what she can get. She remembers her first day there; a small cubicle, excitement pooling inside the soles of her feet, trying not to smile.

He tells her they're going to find whoever did this. He's carefully using the word they, she notes, not _we're. _So he won't be staying. He talks to her, asks her how she's feeling, it's nice. It's like old times when they trusted each other. Even that sounds too far away, blurred in her mind with the original meaning twisted and manipulated beyond recognition.

He leaves and she leaves the words '_running away?' _stranded in her throat where they're supposed to be.Quinn enters with the nurse who has an entire tray filled with pills. She's sure she's been eating more pills than actual food. As she takes her medicine, he stares back at her, detached and impassive as ever. She wants to get angry at someone, something; because then at least she'd be doing _something. _She wants to get mad at Saul for leaving, but she can't because she was going to the same a year and a half ago. She wants to yell at Quinn for just sitting there and not saying something, but she can't burn anymore bridges- and not _this _particular bridge. At the continuous staring, he finally decides to speak.

_Do you remember anything? _He asks her, and she shakes her head, frustration back in her stead. She pulls up a numb hand and runs it through her hair. He winces at that and she's tempted to ask him why. For some reason, she doesn't. _Nothing,_ she tells him_, I remember a white light, screaming and that's it. I'm_ _sorry I wasn't there_, he says, and she's speechless. She averts her eyes, busying herself with the medicine. _Its fine, _she states. They don't say a word after that.

Maggie visits her, with their father. Quinn always seems to miraculously disappear whenever the meager amount of people worried about her show up. The pills make her drowsy, and she falls asleep.

You wake up in your family cabin. Vodka bottles surround you and the place is a _mess._

You wake up on a train track near your house with your fellow eight year old friends screaming at you to get down.

She can feel it moving, she can feel the tracks shivering, sending vibrations up her legs and she feels terror running up her feet, but she can feel the thrill, she can feel the excitement and anticipation, the high from her fear- it's like a drug and she's addicted. One of the girls, Katie starts crying. Others remain rooted to the ground and scream in high pitched voices. None of it fazes her. The trains close, too close, the warning bells are chiming and she can't hear anything but the beat of her heart. It's so loud it is all- encompassing, and she can't hear anything and at the end moment where death almost snatches her away, she jumps and rolls from the grass, laughing, laughing and laughing.

You wake up in Iran, alone.

You wake up in your chair at your desk in your previous bosses' office.

A memory passes her by- she remembers Estes. She remembers looking at him and smiling- because he's the one guy who hasn't been grilling her over with owing sexual favors for finding a goddamn file for her, because he's smart and handsome and capable of having a conversation. So she says yes and has more than a few drinks with him- even though she knows how these things work and it won't end well for either one of them- not to mention the fact that he's married with two children for God's sake.

It gets serious. She leaves things in his room, and he leaves things in hers and none of them mention it. It's the card that makes her run. She's waiting for him in his room, and she's strolling around, and there on his desk is a small card with crude writing and horrible graphics made with crayons and childhood naivety. '_Come back home. We and mommy miss you lots.' _It reads. So she runs. She runs all the way to Goddamn New York. When she comes back, she can't meet his eyes through the haze of gossip over his divorce.

You wake up in the hallway of a Baghdad prison with two minutes to get information.

She needs this(in the present, she can taste the memory)- she's been working her ass off fr this and fuck everyone if she's going to let the man be executed without getting what she needs. She needs a win, Goddamnit and she's going to get it. She tells him lies, makes him promises she can't fulfill until he agrees to tell her ad as the guards pull her back with all the force they hold in their arms, she keeps handing on to the bars of the miniscule window with her ear against it as the man tells her that _an American prisoner of war has been turned _and that's when her grip falters and they drag her away. She leaves behind echoes of '_get my family safe!_'

Saul doesn't talk to her for days. Cut that, a month before he replies to her good morning. Estes fills up with anger every time she's in eyesight.

The emotions feel forgotten against her tongue.

You wake up and you're gone.

She's at gunpoint, the file near her feet. Her best chance is to try to fight, to play a victim and get her guard down, cry, maybe? For some reason the tears aren't coming. Her team is God knows where, and last she heard, the sniper with then is leaking his brain out on some god forsaken rooftop in a four mile radius. The silver metal of the gun is touching hr temple and the cold sends a shiver into her steps. Terror is beyond her. Her eyes remain open, and the shot rings out.

Her world does not go black, instead, the man next to her collapses. A few seconds later, the other one does too. Shock courses through her, resonates in every heart beat.

Half an hour later, sitting with a blanket around her and Quinn standing there with no expression on his face is enough to make realization hit her. _You shot them, didn't you? _She says, but it's not in the way of a question or an accusation- more of a simple observational statement. She gets no reply in return. _Thanks, _she mumbles, the silence is surprisingly nice.

_No problem. I meant it when I told you I've got your back_, He tells her, and she squirms. She's well acquainted with anger and hostility. She's barely met sentimentality, and its alien coming from Quinn of all people. It's unknown, unchartered territory, but it's alright. _I'm just glad you didn't shoot me like last time, _she says, hoping to have something familiar on the new area. He looks uncomfortable at the reminder, so she tones it back. _But still, thanks. I owe you one, _she says. _I shot you once- I think we're even, _he answers, (she's sort of glad), and that's that. The comfortable silence looms over them, pleasant and welcoming and _familiar._

You wake up with sheets sticking to your skin and a striking pain in the left side of your chest.

She remembers the blinding pain is she brings a new life into the world. She remembers squishing her partners hand so hard he almost let's go of the detached face and winces. She's beautiful, though and looks exactly like him, same hair and his eyes with small blonde eyelashes. As they hand the baby to her, she holds her in her arms. It's sad, because as she holds her own flesh and blood in her hands she feels nothing. She sees all of the things she does, sees her inability to mesh with things, sees what her life is, and she knows even if she's made wrong decisions in her life, she needs his daughter to have a better life than she can offer. There's no full devotion or flashing love. Just determination and bitterness. Quinn doesn't say a word as she hands the child over to the nurse, and she's glad, because she cannot deal with it.

You wake up in bed with no memory of how you got there.

You wake up at Grace memorial with rainbow colored pills by your bedside.

You wake up at Seatac.

You wake up with a cast over your leg and your doctor telling you you'll have to be very careful.

She's not careful.

She can remember the exact moment where she draws the star, because fuck Lockhart if he thinks Brody doesn't deserve a star. He deserves it. He deserves it, because somewhere inside of him there was a good man and he died for his country. There's no one there, and so she draws the star one it, because Goddamit he fucking deserved it, _he deserved it, _why won't anybody understand that, and she goes to sleep that night with his voice saying, _I only need one. _

She remembers that even better. Remembers asking him about what he's looking at, and him telling her it's a star. And yes, it's the first star in the sky. So she tells him,_wait an hour- you'll see thousands. _And she remembers the exact time when he turns to her and tell her that he only needs _one. _

She goes to sleep satisfied.

You wake up and it's morning.

You wake up with crutches and finally being allowed to leave.

Saul's happy- she hears. She calls Mira, she knows her- too well perhaps, because of all the times she was over at Saul with some theory or evidence or need of advice. (Once Mira even told her that Carrie was his work wife and they'd laughed about it over white wine.) She tells her it's been hard, but it's been good. They're happy, Mira says, -and Carrie knows she's secretly answering the unasked question that has somehow reached her ears- _he's _happy, Mira tells her in code words, and she feels alright, because wow, if someone deserves to be happy and relaxed with no fucked up CIA on their backs for a while, it's Saul. They talk a little more, here and there- Mira's smart (and experienced enough) to not ask about her daughter, or what plans she has. She asks her if she wants to talk to Saul later on, but she says no. _I'm fine, _she says, and Mira get's what she's trying to say. _I'll take care of him. _Because Saul deserves that. He deserves some fucking peace and normalcy in his life, with a beautiful wife to come home to and take out to dinner and what not. He's done a lot. He's done a lot for her, and the CIA and almost everybody she's seen him with, so he gets to have this.

She doesn't. Not yet, at least.

You wake up in an air plane with blood dripping out your nose and people slowly waking up around you.

You wake up yelling for a Goddamn _green _pen.

You wake up with fearful anticipation going through each nerve.

She doesn't really remember the electroshock therapy. Not really. She doesn't remember pain or anything, but she never ever wants it again. The only thing she remembers is being strapped in, ready for it, people telling her to be calm- that small voice telling her that she can't trust herself, she's lost the one thing that's kept her going; her own gut feeling, the voice that's getting louder and louder- and all those thoughts coursing through her head off being wrong_, _being _wrong _about the one thing she believes with her entire heart and soul, with every fiber of her being- and she's fucking wrong about it- and how the hell is she supposed to go on with her life like that? Constantly doubting herself, never trusting her instincts, questioning her mental state, her sanity each moment of the day?

She remembers being strapped in, and she remembers the shot touching her and her world goes black. Nothing to be felt, nothing to he heard, or touched or smelt or breathed. It's nothing. It's calm. It's resting.

It is not her.

But who is she again? She's the agent who is _wrong, wrong, wrong._

The memories barge in on her randomly, whenever they wish, like uninvited guests. She can feel each one running through her, recognition going through her mind and she hates it. Hates the clues she can't connect with memories she can't place.

You wake up in rubble and dust with demons surrounding you.

She shares a drink with Quinn almost every few nights. Particularly this night. They don't do bets today like they usually do- sometimes it's her who proposes a bet, other times it's him- usually something in battle with liver and ego, and ego always wins. They're not good for each other, and they're not bad for each other. They're somewhere on the medium scale of friends, acquaintances and enemies, on the good, okay and bad influence scale and somewhere in the middle of the love, hate and live-with-it scale too. Occasionally, they sometimes move to good, friends and like- but it's not often. Rarely is the word she'd use.

No bets tonight, though, because three of the best agents in white collar with them are lying dead in a morgue with their family crying all over them and they're dead because they- she – didn't reach them in time, didn't figure out what was actually happening till it was too late. Still, she's kind of glad Quinn's here- he's not nice or anything, but he's like her in an unlikely way even though they're different as night and day- but he's by her side, and he's been there for a long time. He's her partner and he's got her back and the thought is strangely comforting.

So, no bets- but drinking is still on. They smoke and drink till two in the fucking morning, until she can't see straight and he looks way too tired. _I've never seen you smile, you know that? _ She states the obvious, and he doesn't reply. She doesn't blame him. There's not really anything in reply to her question. More silence, and one more round of drinks and the bartender's disapproving look. _You should smile more, _he says and she turns to look at him from her boring drink. He meets her eye for eye, and she has the urge to tell him something about her childhood or a bad experience. She suppresses it.

_I need a reason to, _she tells him, diverting her wavering attention back to her glass. The cigar feels nice- she hasn't really smoked cigars often- she sticks to cigarettes usually, but they're there, and they're good. More silence.Nice, comforting and _familiar _silence.

You wake up naked, next to your unofficial partner in a similar state. It's foreign, and it tastes different on her tongue.

You wake up nowhere.

You go back to sleep.


End file.
